Breakdown of Jučer je zaboravila pismo.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
pismo
letter
jučer
yesterday
zaboraviti
to forget
Questions & Answers about Jučer je zaboravila pismo.
How do we know it means "she" forgot if the word ona (she) isn't in the sentence?
In Croatian, the main verb in the past tense changes its ending based on the gender of the subject. The -la ending on zaboravila tells us the subject is feminine singular. Because this ending already makes it clear who did the action, the pronoun ona is usually dropped unless you want to emphasize it.
What if a man forgot the letter? How would the sentence change?
If a man forgot the letter, the ending of the main verb would change to the masculine singular form, which ends in -o. The sentence would become: Jučer je zaboravio pismo.
Why does je come right after jučer instead of being next to the main verb?
The word je is a short, unstressed helper verb (a clitic) used to build the past tense. In Croatian, these short words almost always jump to the second position in a sentence. Since jučer is the first piece of information, je has to go right after it.
Is pismo the subject or the object here, and why doesn't its ending change?
Pismo is the direct object (the thing that was forgotten), so it is in the accusative case. However, pismo is a neuter noun. For all neuter nouns in Croatian, the accusative case looks exactly the same as the basic dictionary form, so its ending stays exactly the same.
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